


Winter

by cold_nights_summer_days



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Gen, Historical AU, I Wrote This Instead Of Being Productive, Leningrad, Not Canon Compliant, Russia, WWII, battle of leningrad, cause im still pretending endgame doesnt exist, im bad at tags, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22383043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cold_nights_summer_days/pseuds/cold_nights_summer_days
Summary: Peter climbed the ladder quickly, it's cold metal freezing against his fingers. The binoculars in the pocket of his threadbare coat bumped against his waist uncomfortably with every step.Once reaching the top of the ladder, Peter wasted no time in throwing open the hatch and pulling himself onto the roof. Harsh wind ruffled Peter's hair (last time he had been up here, it had blown his hat clean off. He supposed by now a German had made good use of it.) and stung his eyes. A snow storm was on the horizon, and Peter hoped to finish his job before it arrived.ORAnother WWII au :))
Relationships: Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Peter Parker and Clint Barton (mentioned), Peter Parker and Natasha Romanov (mentioned), Peter Parker and Tony Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	1. Prequel

**Author's Note:**

> UPDATE: If you are reading this fic on any platform other than the Archive, such as any of the app store/google play apps that are only accesible behind a paywall, this work is available for free on archiveofourown.com. 
> 
> So . . . I know this isn't what y'all asked for, but its what i wrote :) I know I've said this a lot, but I super duper promise that there will be more of the Gilmore Girls au sometime soon! I've got a lot on my plate right now with the Irondad Big Bang and febuwump coming up. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this fic, even though it's a little bit weird. 
> 
> Background info: during the battle of leningrad in 1941-1944, there was a group of around 2000 people who took shelter from the Germans in the basement of the Hermitage Museum, which is where this fic takes place. Before the battle officially started, the entire museum staff packed up all the art work (paintings and statues) and sent them on a train to the Ural mountains so that they would not be destroyed during the war. 
> 
> I defintetly took some historical liberties with this fic, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless :)))))

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter (although being posted second) actually comes before the first one in chronological order. Sorry for the inconvenience!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I finally expanded on this little fic a little bit! To anyone who previously read this fic, the original one shot is now listed as chapter two :) p.s. I actually wrote this for my english class (yes, I wrote a fanfic for an english assignment), so if there are any weird names that I forgot to change, I'm sorry. I'm sure I caught them all, but just in case!

**2 June 1941**

It was a beautifully warm Sunday in Leningrad. The July sun peeked through the panes of the museum director’s windows, illuminating the many papers strewn about his desk. The man himself paced behind the large wooden desk. His dark hair was sticking every which way from where he’d worriedly run his hands through it. The museum had closed hours ago, but the job was never done. He had to oversee the new exhibits being installed, the new excavation sites being organized around the country, and most of all, the impending German invasion.

“Excuse me, Ms. Potts, but may I have a word?” The director called out. Moments later a wispy looking woman, his secretary, stepped through the office doors. Her blonde hair hung loosely on her shoulders. She spent more time around art than people and found styling it to be a waste of time.

“Yes, Mr. Stark?” She said, patiently waiting for command. Mr. Stark turned to face her, worry etched into his expression. He took a deep breath before speaking, coming to terms with what he was about to say.

“I need you to send a memo to all the employees. We will not be taking tomorrow off.” Usually the museum was closed on Mondays for things such as moving exhibits or repairing pieces of the old palace. It was an odd notion for everyone to be called in on a Monday.

“Might I ask why, sir?”

“We will be packing away the art to be taken away. If anyone gives you any trouble, send them to me and I’ll sort it out.”

Ms. Potts blinked at the director as if he was making no sense. How could they possibly hope to move everything at a time like this? The museum held hundreds of thousands of works, each one fragile and rare.

“Are—are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Yes, Ms. Potts, it is. It is my job as director to keep the art safe, and that is exactly what I plan to do.” Mr. Stark answered, voice hard. He knew it would be an incredible feat indeed, but he believed that if anyone could pull it off, it was his own staff.

Ms. Potts nodded quickly and darted from the room to type up the memo. Her typewriter could be heard throughout the office wing, its heavy clacks echoing off the walls like a warning call.

Peter was pulled from his fitful sleep by a heavy knocking on his apartment door. He’d only managed to fall asleep twenty minutes before and was desperately wanted to return to it. He laid in bed another minute before the knocking came again and he was forced to acknowledge whoever it was.

The night had cooled off significantly, and Peter wished he’d had the forethought to grab a coat before he opened the door. At his door stood a harried courier holding a stack of papers. She pushed one of them into his hands, muttered a quick, “Good evening,” was gone.

Peter shut the door hastily behind himself and made his way to the living room. After turning on the lamp, he began to read.

_We will be working tomorrow, on Monday, and will continue doing so into the foreseeable future. Report to the Hall of Twenty Columns tomorrow morning at seven sharp. Signed, Tony Stark (head director)_

Peter looked confusedly between the note and the clock sitting on his mantle. It was nearly ten, an odd hour for a memo, especially from the museum. Was there some special event that required them to be open tomorrow? A dignitary’s dinner, maybe. Those didn’t happen often, but it wasn’t an impossible explanation. 

Instead of playing a guessing game, Peter set an alarm for six the next morning and crawled back into bed. He would get his answers tomorrow.

Peter was one of the first to arrive the next day at barely 06:40. The front doors were still locked upon his arrival, so he found a back-way in. The museum was blissfully quiet, and Peter took his time making his way into the Hall of Twenty Columns. It was an impressive room, and one of his favorites. The ceiling seemed to stretch impossibly high. The black pillars and intricate floor gave the space an air of undeniable importance. The room itself was just as much a piece of art as the ancient vases it held.

There was a few other workers that Peter recognized from the restoration room where he worked standing near the back of the exhibit, and Peter made his way to them. One of them, an older woman with dark eyes, was the restoration director. She was the one who designated which pieces would be restored and who was assigned to work on it. The other two were students that had been in the same graduating class as Peter; Michelle Jones (a girl whom he’d had very little conversations with) and Ned Leeds (a boy with whom he’d become very close friends).

“Do you know what’s going on?” Ned asked, “I tried to ask the courier, but she didn’t say anything more than what was in the memo.”

Michelle and Peter shook their heads. They traded theories as more and more employees of all kinds showed up. Janitors and curators and even the resident artists filed into the room and stood in clumps discussing the situation. At seven sharp, Mr. Stark walked into the room. He wore a rumpled suit, the same one Peter had seen him wearing yesterday, and held a steaming mug like a lifeline.

He cleared his throat to garner the room’s attention before diving into his explanation. The employees quieted down immediately. Mr. Stark was well-liked for his easy going manner and his devotion to the museum. Almost everyone there knew him personally.

“I’m deeply sorry to have called you in on your free day, but we have an extremely important goal. We are going to be packing and moving every piece of art in the Hermitage,” He said. The crowd gasped and glanced at each other like they couldn’t believe what their boss was saying.

“It will be difficult, but I have no doubts that we can do it. I’ve made a preliminary list of which exhibits will be sent away and which ones will simply be stored in the vaults. I will be dividing you into teams, and each team will be tasked with one exhibit for the day. You need to be quick, but don’t rush. These aren’t school projects; they’re hundred-year-old masterpieces.”

“He can’t be serious,” Ned mumbled under his breath. Peter looked at his friend warily. There weren’t very many reasons they would be given such a task, and none of them were good.

The director walked up and down the length of the crowd, eyeing each person individually. Now that he was closer, one could see the deep purple bags under his eyes. His stress lines appeared to be permanently etched.

“Packing materials are stored in the basement. I’ve been stockpiling for months, and we should have just enough if we use it sparingly. Once your assigned exhibit has been packed away, visit the keysmith’s office to get the vault key or bring it here to be taken to the train station. After a vault is full, bring the key immediately to me. Are your instructions clear?”

“Yes, sir,” The employees said. The director quickly split them up into groups of ten and assigned exhibits and collections. Peter’s group was to pack up the impressionist and post-impressionist collection, which housed seventy-four paintings, as well as the vast jewel collection. Peter knew exactly how many paintings there were simply because he’d worked on many of them.

The first thing the group did was head to the basement. They had to make two trips to grab the postal tubes, and another three to grab enough crates and velvet bags for the precious jewel collection. It was decided that the restorationists (of which there were six in the group, including Ned and Michelle) were in charge of carefully rolling up the paintings. The other four members, who were a mix of curators and office workers, were charged with putting away the gems.

Both groups worked well through lunch and past the usual closing times, and still barely finished before they were too exhausted to keep going. This was how much of the next couple of weeks went, with the exception of volunteers. After the public got wind of the evacuation, hundreds of citizens showed up each day to help build packing crates, carry pieces into the vault, and scavenge the city for more materials. Due to the exponential growth of the work force, five-hundred thousand of the exhibits had been stripped and packed in just ten days. 

The first train left for the Ural Mountains on July 1st. It was a quiet affair. Peter had been one of the workers to transport the art to the train station, and he almost couldn’t bear watching the train roll away steadily. Most of the workers turned their backs rather than watch. It had been their lives’ work, their pride and joy, to look after those collections and keep them safe. How tragic it had been to watch their purpose glide away on steel rails with only their hopes to keep it safe.

The second train left only nineteen days later, but the Hermitage was far from empty. The third train never left; the Germans had surrounded the city. Mr. Stark had ordered what remained to be taken to the vaults as quickly as possible. On the final day of work, Mr. Stark gathered them in the Hall of Twenty Columns once more. Peter pointedly avoided the empty display cases and shelves, the informational plaques the only evidence of the magnificence they once held.

“I appreciate and admire the work you have accomplished here,” He told them solemnly. Hundreds of tired faces stared back at him. “Now that we are surrounded, everything is dangerous. If any of you wish to stay here, I will find a space for you, but if not, I sincerely hope to see you when the world is a quieter place.”


	2. Prequel

Peter climbed the ladder quickly, it's cold metal freezing against his fingers. The binoculars in the pocket of his threadbare coat bumped against his waist uncomfortably with every step. 

Once reaching the top of the ladder, Peter wasted no time in throwing open the hatch and pulling himself onto the roof. Harsh wind ruffled Peter's hair (last time he had been up here, it had blown his hat clean off. He supposed by now a German had made good use of it.) and stung his eyes. A snow storm was on the horizon, and Peter hoped to finish his job before it arrived. 

"Come on, Harley, let's get this done quick," Peter shouted, peering down the ladder he had just emerged from. 

"You don't have to tell me twice," Harley answered. A moment later he was standing next to Peter with his own binoculars in hand. Together they scanned the quickly darkening skyline, searching for the telltale glow of flames. The Germans had performed yet another air raid on Leningrad, desperate for a win.

Not today, Peter thought smugly. The smugness was gone minutes later when he laid eyes on today's target: a set of short buildings across the street from the Hermitage. Peter always wondered how the Germans kept missing them, but he supposed they were improving every day. Last week they had been three blocks away, yesterday two, today one. 

Aside from settling dust and residual smoke from the raid, nothing else (save for the battalion of Axis soldiers camped not two miles away) seemed amiss. It hurt Peter's heart to see his beloved city so destroyed. He mostly tried to push his feelings aside. There would be time to rebuild when they were no longer under the constant threat of death, from soldiers, anyway.

By now it had started to snow. The delicate flakes landed in Peter and Harley's hair as the cold found it's way through the boy's threadbare outerwear. Not much could be spared for simple fire spotters. The resistance fighters had very little, and what they did have was concentrated on soldiers and young children. 

Peter tapped Harley's shoulder and motioned for them to go back inside. As usual, Harley descended first. Once they were both back inside the museum, Harley began to laugh. His voice echoed on the impeccably decorated ceiling. Peter looked at him curiously. 

"Fucking idiots. Who invades Russia in the winter?"

At this, Peter began to laugh, too. They often joked about the German's bad time at the dinner table, debated on how long they would last before giving up. Needless to say, the joke got progressively less funny the longer the battle raged. 

The boys quickly made their way through the large halls and stairwells until they reached the basement. To Peter, it felt like only yesterday these rooms were filled with magnificent paintings and expertly carved statues. The pain of having to pack them away and ship them off to the Ural Mountains still stung deeply, as it did for most of the other museums curators. Many had spent their lives restoring and caring for these works. It had been extremely difficult to pack them up, even more to see them go. 

But one day, when the fighting was over and the buildings had been rebuilt, everything would be restored. At least, that's what the resistance told themselves. To believe otherwise was to forfeit hope, and by extension, their lives. 

Soon enough they reached the basement, the air cold despite the mass amount of people taking shelter in it. Full to the brim with nearly two thousand people, resources were hard to find. Candles must be used sparingly, meaning many a night was spent in complete darkness. How odd Peter found it to hear everyone around you yet not be able to see your own hands. 

Fuel was not quite so rare, as long as scavengers didn't mind stealing wood from fallen buildings and coal from the edges of Nazi camps. Peter had only been on scavenging missions a handful of times, preferring instead to spot fires and accompany resistance soldiers. One particular pair, in fact. 

A scary-as-hell redhead named Natasha and her partner, an especially skilled sharpshooter who went by the name Bucky. 

"See anything?" Mr. Stark asked, walking up to the pair of them with a paper in his left hand. His right arm had been in a sling for a few weeks because of a grazing bullet. 

"Just the usual," Peter answered, sighing. "A cluster of buildings northwest from here was destroyed this time. Right across the street." 

"Really? Seems the Luftwaffe is finally getting their act together." Mr. Stark commented. Peter simply nodded. "Well, I suggest you two go grab some dinner while there's still some left, though I doubt that will be long. After that talk to Steve so he can add the new damage to the maps." 

"Sure thing, Mr. Stark. And do you know when Natasha and Bucky will be back?" 

"Hopefully tonight, though the snowstorm blowing in might affect that." 

"Thank you," Peter said. Mr. Stark gave him a mock salute before returning to his "office", a small desk in a relatively quiet corner of the air raid shelter. Peter and Harley made their way to the dining area. Both were rather hungry after all the excitement of the day. 

Dinner was the same tonight as it had been most other nights: watered down soup. Peter and Harley ate their shares quickly without complaint. Something was always better than nothing (unless that something was Germans, in which case he would _gladly_ take nothing). 

Later that night, long after candles out, Peter found himself unable to sleep despite his fatigue. Harley could be heard snoring next to him ( _"You snore like a bear in your sleep, did you know that?"_ ). 

Peter let his mind wander as he often did at night. He thought of his old job at the museum. How simple it seems that only three months ago he spent his days admiring the paintings in the halls whilst he gave tours to Russians and foreigners alike. Now he spends his days scavenging wood, spotting fires after air raids, and shooting Nazis with the help of Natasha's instruction. 

Oh, the things he would give to sleep in a real bed in a real house with a real fire crackling in the hearth and eat real food at a real dinner table. 

Peter tossed and turned that night while he slept, dreaming of the life he used to live.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I sincerely hope that you enjoyed this weird little fic as much as I did writing it. Don't forget to leave comments/kudos if you did, I always love to have feedback on my writing! Until next time, loves!!
> 
> [Support me on Ko-Fi, or commission a fic!](https://ko-fi.com/cold_nights_summer_days)


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